{"id":66594,"date":"2018-04-17T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=66594"},"modified":"2018-04-16T22:22:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T03:22:57","slug":"one-day-at-the-met-council-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=66594","title":{"rendered":"One Day At The Met Council, 1996"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>SCENE:\u00a0 The Metropolitan Council, meeting at their downtown office.\u00a0 It is 1996.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Members Rick Blickson, Sandra Tostenson, Mark Skjellerud, Andy Blotzer and Audrey Vreeland are in committee meeting with Edgar Folkenflick and Eliza Vanderprimp, representatives from &#8220;Transit Works&#8221;, a consulting company pushing rail mass transit with metro areas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>BLICKSON:\u00a0 We are meeting here today to discuss &#8220;Transit Works&#8221; proposal that the Twin Cities spend $700 million on a light rail line.\u00a0 Any questions or comments for the consultants?<\/p>\n<p>TOSTENSON:\u00a0 \u00a0Yes.\u00a0 So just to make sure &#8211; the proposed train\u00a0<em>would\u00a0<\/em>be able to run better than buses in the sort of inclement or icy weather that&#8217;s so common around here?<\/p>\n<p>FOLKENFLICK:\u00a0 No &#8211; light rail trains are no more robust in their handling in snow and ice than a bus, and may in fact me more vulnerable to route blockage in snowy conditions than buses.<\/p>\n<p>SKJELLERUD: OK.\u00a0 But the train is more reliable in general?\u00a0 It can react to stoppages and other irregularities better than buses?<\/p>\n<p>FOLKENFLICK:\u00a0 That&#8217;s incorrect.\u00a0 While a bus can merely detour around an obstacle, a train is entirely at the mercy of whatever is on the track.<\/p>\n<p>BLOTZER: Er&#8230;OK.\u00a0 But in terms of major incidents&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>FOLKENFLICK:\u00a0 &#8230;any major incident will require hours to clear, and enough heavy equipment to widen the Panama Canal, maneuvering on busy city streets, thus taking hours to clear any mishaps.<\/p>\n<p>VREELAND:\u00a0 So&#8230;er, Mr. Folkenflick, Ms. Vanderprimp &#8211; why would anyone buy something so seemingly ill-conceived?<\/p>\n<p>VANDERPRIMP:\u00a0 New York.\u00a0 Boston.\u00a0 San Franciso.\u00a0 Washington DC&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>BLICKSON:\u00a0 We&#8217;ll take two!<\/p>\n<p><em>And SCENE<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCENE:\u00a0 The Metropolitan Council, meeting at their downtown office.\u00a0 It is 1996.\u00a0\u00a0 Members Rick Blickson, Sandra Tostenson, Mark Skjellerud, Andy Blotzer and Audrey Vreeland are in committee meeting with Edgar Folkenflick and Eliza Vanderprimp, representatives from &#8220;Transit Works&#8221;, a consulting company pushing rail mass transit with metro areas.\u00a0\u00a0 BLICKSON:\u00a0 We are meeting here today to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66596,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66594\/revisions\/66596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}